


There's no place like home

by Mary_from_Maryland



Category: Lost
Genre: F/M, Father-Daughter Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Mild Sexual Content, Post-Canon, Redemption, Single Parents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-07
Updated: 2013-07-06
Packaged: 2017-12-17 23:05:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/872986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mary_from_Maryland/pseuds/Mary_from_Maryland
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“He’s my Dad, you f-fuckin’ bastard”, Alex sobbed, and suddenly she was so beautiful, sitting on the pavement in the orange glow of the street lights, loose strands of hair framing her face, eye liner and tears streaming down her cheeks, that Ben felt his heart was going to break.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Flashes before your eyes

Benjamin Linus had never believed in stuff like reincarnation and parallel universes. Not that he didn’t respect people who did – although he tended to disapprove of the respectively new-agey and sci-fi-ish misrepresentations of the two concepts; he just had never counted himself among their number.

That was, before the deranged yuppie with the Scottish accent had beaten the living daylights out of him.

Suppressing a sigh, he walked down the now almost empty corridor, smiling vaguely at the occasional late students, most of which stole a curious glance at his sling before smiling back. The rumors about the circumstances of his ‘incident’ must have spread. He could probably blame Leslie Artz for that.

“Doctor Linus!”

“Hello, Alex.”

She stood up, beaming. She always looked so genuinely relieved to see him. As if he really mattered. As if she actually needed him. It was pretty weird, feeling necessary to someone. Of course, he reflected as he pulled the history book out of his case, his father had been requiring his assistance for years, but there was no comparing the two sensations – no way he could liken the old, ragged existence to whose decay’s daily delay he duly attended to the recent, vernal blossom of a life which seemed to call for his guiding protection.

“Are you all right? How’s your arm?”

“I’m fine, thank you. Good afternoon, Bearsby”, he added, addressing a freckly bespectacled youth whose disarming resemblance to a stereotyped representation of nerdiness always made Ben smile wryly over the nature of his History Club.

“Good afternoon, Doctor Linus. Hi, Alex”, stammered the boy, closing the door of the library behind him.

“Where are Gere, Palmer and Thompson?”

“Oh, they…” Alex hesitated. “They couldn’t make it. But this morning a classmate of mine asked if he could join the club. He should be here any moment.”

As if in response to her words, the door opened again, revealing a tall, plain-looking teenager whose eyes darted immediately to Alex.

“Doctor Linus, this is Karl Martin.”

“Nice to meet you, Karl”, Ben said, walking over to him to shake his hand. “I’m glad you decided to join our currently little-frequented club. Are you keen on history?”

 The boy wavered for a moment, glancing at Alex again before answering, “Of course, sir. I love history.”

“All right”, Ben sighed, an amused smile playing on his lips. “Have a seat. Today, we’re dealing with some in-depth analysis of the outcomes of the Russian revolution of 1905…”

 

\---------------------------

 

It was all extremely confusing, he thought as he watched Alex intently copying the summary of the October Manifesto he’d just outlined on the blackboard.

First, John Locke the substitute had wheeled himself into the teachers’ lounge with that cryptically candid smile of his and then had practically talked Ben into attempting to take Principal Reynolds’s post. _As if he knew something about me that I don’t quite understand,_ had been Ben’s fleeting thought in that moment, but he’d dismissed it as obviously ludicrous. Next thing he knew, he was in the back of an ambulance with the same man, telling him that he was going to be okay; a few days later, a wild-eyed businessman was smashing his head against the hood of a Renault, ranting about ‘helping Locke let go’.

That had been the first time he’d seen it.

A flash. Too brightly-colored and oddly silent, like some third-rate soap opera filming. And there he was again, the Scottish attacker, albeit a little different in appearance, beating him up – _again_ – with something similar to a harbor behind him.

Half an hour later, while he sat in the infirmary waiting irritably for the nurse – who happened to be the same whose intercourse with Principal Reynolds Alex had been unfortunate enough to witness – to finish taking care of his bruises, he realized that he actually believed in what he had seen. Not that it made any sense to him, nor was he able to connect the content of that flash to any kind of alternate reality with the slightest semblance of plausibility.

He simply knew that that had happened, somehow, somewhere, with the same certainty with which he knew that fire hurts you if you touch it or that his mother had died right after delivering him.

That evening, at dinner, his father had been particularly fussy about the food, and Ben had raised his eyes, sudden rage surging trough him, mixing with the tearless, smothering sadness which took over him every time he got home. He was about to ask whether his father had noticed that his son’s left arm was in a fucking _sling_ , when another flash hit him, bright colors and all, just like the first one – except, a younger version of his father dying before his eyes was far worse than a stranger beating the hell out of him on a sunny dock.

The oxygen pipes had been replaced by two thin rivulets of blood running from his father’s nose. He was coughing and wheezing, spluttering Ben’s name, an incredulous expression on his face. It looked like the two of them were sitting in the front of a car, but why – why in hell wasn’t Ben helping him?

“Sir?”

Ben blinked, shaking himself from the disquieting memory.

“Excuse me, sir, why did you say the Marxists weren’t satisfied with the Manifesto?”

 

\---------------------------

 

Ben couldn’t help feeling a tinge of jealousy as his eyes followed Alex walking down the parking lot hand in hand with that boy Martin. Then again, to be fair, the guy looked decent enough, and Alex was undoubtedly too bright to let anyone push her around. Ben had better mind his own business anyway, seeing that Alex wasn’t his daughter, although she’d called him ‘the nicest guy ever’ and her mother – her excessively attractive mother, Ben couldn’t restrain himself from mentally adding – had told him that he was the closest thing to a father Alex had ever had.    

“Enjoying the view?”

Ben started, turning around.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you”, John Locke was beaming at him from the top of the entrance ramp. “Do you mind if I join you?”

“Please!” Ben exclaimed, half standing up to leave him room on the bench before realizing his error. Locke couldn’t sit on a bench. “I didn’t think you would be at school in the afternoon.”

”Yeah, neither did I until yesterday morning, to tell the truth. Looks like I’ll have to cover detention for the week. Principal Reynolds was kind enough as to inform me in person”, Locke smirked, settling his wheelchair next to Ben. “’In budget crises some of us will have to pay double duty’, as he put it.”

“I can’t believe it. Reynolds chose _you_ for supervising detention? After – after what you’ve been through?”

Locke waved his hand nonchalantly. “It’s not really a problem. My fiancée is making the preparations for our wedding, and, as much as I love her, I don’t mind getting some time away from home. It clears my mind a bit.”

 Ben smiled. This man reminded him of some ascetic figure. A hermit. A Buddhist monk, maybe. He had some difficulties picturing him in married life.

“Congratulations”, he said. “Helen, isn’t it?”

“Yes. How did you know?”

“Oh, I just…” Ben hesitated. “I just remembered. From the ambulance. Helen Norwood. You said you were going to marry her.”

 “Ah, yes, of course. And you told me I would still marry her, because I was going to be okay. It was very kind of you. Let alone preventing that hit-and-run driver from running me over the second time.”

“Don’t mention it”, Ben almost blurted out. He didn’t feel like talking about the man right now. “How are our would-be hooligans treating you, down in detention?”

Locke grinned, looking out at the nearly deserted parking lot. “Oh, they’re treating me just fine. I’ve never had any problems with the kids, luckily, especially now that I’m known as the favorite target of lunatic drivers. That has to entail some sympathy, I suppose.”

Ben turned towards him, wondering at how serenely the man seemed to have taken the events. “I wish my beating up had had the same effect”, he laughed bitterly. “But it hasn’t.”

 Locke nodded, looking him in the eyes. “That is probably because I’m in a wheelchair and you’re not.”

Ben jumped up, bewildered. Disconnected images started flashing before his eyes like overexposed freeze-frames.

“What did you just say?”

“Have a good evening, Ben.”


	2. Collision

 

“How’s your arm doing?”

Ben raised his eyes from the  _steak au poivre_  he’d been absent-mindedly staring at to meet Danielle Rousseau’s gaze from across the table. He paused, momentarily lost for words at the ever so slight melancholy of her periwinkle-blue eyes. From somewhere at the back of his mind, a sixteen years younger version of the same eyes glared at him, burning with insanity and fear.

“I feel quite better now, thank you”, he smiled, realizing he was almost sincere.

 “Doctor Linus, is it true that you’ve been reassigned to covering detention?”

“Regrettably, I have! I take it that Principal Reynolds has been positively impressed by my skills in the rehabilitation of marginalized youths.”

“Oh, I can’t stand that man”, Danielle chimed in. “I had to meet him and thank him for that letter of recommendation he wrote... He was so patronizing about it.”

“You know, rumor has it you were about to take his post.” Alex added in an admiring tone.

God, he was fond of this girl. He was fairly positive that, if the rumor of his failed attempt at blackmail had indeed spread, it would have been a matter of laughter and derision for any other student in the school. Not that they really disliked him; the problem was, they rarely seemed to take him seriously.

Alex, of course, was another matter entirely.

“Well, I can’t deny the prospect is tempting”, he chuckled, “but I’m afraid it’ll have to be confined to the fanciful land of happy reverie for the time being.”

 “But that means our history club is suspended again!”

Ben shrugged, stiffening a little as Danielle walked past him to get bowls and teaspoons for the dessert, leaving a hint of her perfume behind her. Neither too sweet nor too girly, Ben registered. Something like mulberry and vine.

“Carrying on with the history club wouldn’t have made much sense anyway, to be perfectly honest. As much as I care about encouraging the ambitious students, I have to admit that four people including me aren’t objectively enough to keep the club alive.”

“Yeah, you’re right, I guess”, Alex muttered disconsolately, then brightened up again. “Karl told me he loved it, though.”

“You met Karl?” Danielle asked, frowning slightly. “What do you think of him?”

“Oh, he… He looked like an honest, polite fellow to me. Very, um, keen on history.”

That was the truth, mostly, he told himself as Alex shot him a grateful glance before turning triumphantly to her mother.

 

\-----------------------------

 

Alternate reality was a bitch.

No matter how peaceful he’d managed to look to Locke and Hurley while bidding them goodbye outside of that peculiar church, Ben reflected as he drove his way back home, he definitely  _wasn’t_  at peace with anything that had been occurring to him lately.

First of all, he found himself utterly at a loss every time he tried to wrap his mind around the whole ‘flash-sideways’ thing. He didn’t doubt that theyhad figured it out – Hurley, Locke, Jack, all of them. He’d watched them walk past his stone bench with the dazed smile of contented sleepwalkers, already headed towards their ‘next stop’, whatever that might be, and he’d envied them, in spite of everything, he’d envied them lividly because they were done, they were moving on and they weren’t afraid, not anymore.

 ‘I have some things I still need to work out’... He snorted. That could probably be nominated as understatement of the century.

The second reason why he’d been spending the last couple of nights staring at the ceiling, completely unable to sleep, was that he was less than comfortable with pretty much everything he’d found out about his former – or should he say ‘parallel’? – self.

He didn’t disapprove of murder on principle. After spending half of his life studying history, he’d ended up with quite a fatalistic outlook on how that kind of things went. Deep down, he thought, peoples as well as people actually did very little but point deadly weapons at each other throughout the centuries. It was necessity, it was human nature. No way a couple of centuries of relative peace in a limited portion of the world could change that.

No, it wasn’t really guilt that made him toss and turn in the stifling air of his cramped bedroom. It was pity – a painfully ashamed one, as self-pity often is. He wondered, over and over, how could he possibly have been so wretched? So self-destructively selfish? So pettily mean? The first night, he’d actually ended up scrutinizing his own reflection in the mirror –  _how literary_ , he’d scoffed at himself -, looking for the signs of the misjudgment, of the obliviousness, of the great, dramatic mistake he’d been a victim of for his entire ‘other’ life.

He’d been a pawn, a mere puppet in the hands of his own inferiority complex, slave to the conviction itself of being enslaved. 

He stared blankly at his palms, remembering the squalid horror of seeing them drenched in the blood of his own daughter.

‘I have this under control’, he’d told Alex right before betraying her to death – which was ironic enough, considering that precisely in that moment had his total lack of control been most manifest, relentless and destructive.

 

\--------------------------

 

“Doctor Linus?”

He spun around, cursing himself immediately after. He was in his early forties, for goodness’ sake. He’d better get a hold of himself. His heart couldn’t possibly jump into his throat at the mere sound of that accent.

Danielle emerged from the teeming crowd of students who were leaving school for the lunch break and walked towards him, tiny wrinkles forming around her eyes as she smiled, waving. She was pushing a cream-colored pram.

“Mrs. Rousseau!” he said, walking over to meet her, smiling back. “What can I do for you? It’s Monday, so Alex should be at school until half past four, if I’m not mistaken.”

“I know, I know. I was wondering…” she began hesitantly. “I was wondering if you could do me a favor.”

“I’ll be very glad if I can be of any help. What’s the matter?”

Danielle looked relieved. God, Ben thought, since when was she smiling so much?

“You see, I should be babysitting little Charlie this afternoon”, she went on, gesturing towards the baby in the pram, who locked its brown eyes into Ben’s and chuckled. “But they called me from the hospital, and it looks like they need me there to replace a colleague of mine… You know”, she added with a sigh, “Principal Reynolds is not the only one who expects his employees to pay double duty in budget crises.”

Ben laughed softly. She’d actually remembered his words.

“So, I was wondering… Perhaps you could watch over Charlie for me until Alex gets home? He’s a very tranquil baby, he shouldn’t give you any problems. I know it’s a big favor I’m asking of you, but my plans have been changed on such short notice, and I couldn’t really think of anyone else reliable enough…”

Ben gaped at her, transfixed. Danielle Rousseau trusting him with a baby was probably the most ironical turn of events he could have thought of.

“Please don’t feel obliged to say yes if you’re too -” she began, misinterpreting his silence.

“I’ll be more than happy to look after him, Mrs. Rousseau. You don’t need to worry”, he interrupted her.

She beamed again. “Thank you. Thank you so much, you really saved me. You can walk him around a bit and then take him home. There’s a second bunch of keys under the front door mat. Of course you’re invited to dinner! Oh, and by the way”, she added, turning towards him before making her way to the bus stop, “you can call me Danielle.”

 

\------------------------------

 

They sat on a wooden bench in the small concrete backyard of the Rousseaus’ house. Ben inhaled the fresh evening air, feeling pleasantly buzzed from wine and after-dinner vermouth.

 Danielle was sitting next to him, silently watching the rust-read ivy which climbed the wall opposite to them.

“I wonder how they can find so much to tell each other even though they spend the whole day together”, she murmured after a while. Alex had been talking on the phone for the last twenty minutes, and, judging from the muffled sound of her animated voice which reached them through her bedroom window, she was none too near to the end of the conversation.

Ben smiled. “Young people don’t leave much unsaid”, he murmured in response. It was funny, how they were both almost whispering, awed by the silence.

 She turned towards him. “You were very kind to help me with Charlie, this afternoon.”

“You don’t have to mention it. It was a pleasure. The least I could do to reciprocate your hospitality.”

“You know, sometimes it is hard. Working two jobs to pay the rent, taking care of Alex, taking care of the house… Sometimes it is a little too much.” She shrugged, as if excusing herself for the vent. You could tell she wasn’t a woman accustomed to complaining. “It was nice, having someone sharing the burden, for a change.”

Ben looked at her, wondering if she meant - but no, she couldn’t mean - she didn’t mean –

The soft evening breeze stirred the hem of her low-necked tulle blouse, ruffling her dark hair as she kept her gaze, something fresh and deep flickering in her eyes.

“You’re so beautiful”, he said before he could stop himself, and then she was brushing her fingers against his temple, and then he was kissing her, something heavy and painful in his chest liquefying away, his entire life condensing around that one moment of pure contentment.

Then, abruptly, she pulled away, staring at him in shock, and the moment shattered into bitter shards of disenchantment as he realized that she’d seen it too, she’d remembered, and now there was no going back.

Without a word, he stood up and walked away.


	3. Stranger in a strange land

“Lewis…”

“Here.”

“Lopez…”

“Yeah.”

“Maine…”

“Present.”

Ben’s eyes slid listlessly down the detention attendance sheet.

“Martin…”

“Here, sir.”

 

\--------------------------

 

So Karl the history geek had wound up in detention. Maybe he’d been wrong about the kid. Anyway, he had a feeling that his semi-parental advice wasn’t going to be held in much esteem anytime in the near future.

“Sir?”

Ben raised his eyes from the paperback he’d been half-heartedly leafing through. Why was he bothering to read about orphans raised by Martians anyway? As if he didn’t have enough sci-fi nonsense to deal with in real life.

“What can I do for you, Karl?” he sighed. “Need to go to the toilet?”

“No, not really, sir.” The boy was standing beside the teacher’s desk, looking unresolved. “I just…”

“How’s Alex?” Ben asked before he could stop himself.

She’d been avoiding him, sitting in the back of the classroom, rushing outside as soon as the bell rang, basically disappearing every time he happened to be around.

“Oh, she’s all right”, Karl replied with an unintentional smile.

Ben looked at him for a moment, lost in thought.

 _Karl! Now if you’re gonna sleep with my daughter, I insist you call me Ben_ , a harsher version of his own voice drawled from somewhere at the back of his mind.

“How did you get a detention, by the way?”

“Believe me, nothing serious”, the boy laughed. “We were in the lab this morning and I accidentally spilled some kind of acid on Doctor Artz’s shirt… He went mad at me, and here I am.”

Ben nodded, mildly amused in spite of himself.

“I don’t mind it though”, Karl went on. “I’d have been at school anyway for history club, and besides, I thought I could get a chance to talk to you.”

“Talk to me?” Ben repeated, suddenly wary. Last thing he needed right now was a sixteen-year old kid intimating him to stay away from his girl. “Talk to me about what?”

 “Well”, Karl commenced, drawing a chair towards him and sitting beside the desk, “I understand there’s been some kind of mess involving you and Alex’s mother…”

Ben stiffened. He should definitely stop this now. Tell the guy to go back to his homework or his drug-dealing or anything he might have been busy with before walking over to _talk to him_ , as if he was a badly-behaved kid with whom you had to be nice and patient.

Then again, as matters stood, Karl was currently the closest person to Alex and Danielle who appeared willing to have a conversation with him, so he figured he’d give it a try, hurt dignity or not.

“Your information is quite correct”, he conceded, repressing a sigh. “Has… Has Alex told you this?”

Karl gave him a look that was a little too sympathetic for his taste before answering, but hey, at least he wasn’t banishing him or something.

“Yeah, she did. Although…” he hesitated. “Although it sounded a little bit confused to me, to be honest.”

Ben smirked. He bet it did.

“I mean, she told me about this other life we’re supposed to have lived – or be living, I didn’t get that part, but I think neither she did, I figure it’s just too much of a mess – and she told me you were her father back then… But it looks like you were the bad guy, too.”

“So she…” Ben left his gaze wonder over the neglected classroom. He hadn’t considered the possibility of having to choke back tears before the end of this conversation. “… she remembered too?”

“I guess she did. She told me she was crossing the street with her mother, the traffic light was turning red so her mother grabbed her wrist and told her to run, and in that moment she saw these flashes… And afterwards Mrs. Rousseau explained the whole thing to her, and Alex tried to explain it to me, even though I honestly can’t remember a thing about being kept in cages and brainwashed and killed.”

There was no resentment in the boy’s eyes, but that was because he didn’t remember, he hadn’t seen it yet…

“Either way”, Karl went on with a hint of uneasiness in his voice – was the physical pain Ben was currently experiencing so evident? –, “here’s what I wanted to tell you – what I told Alex too, for that matter. I can’t really say I understand much of what’s happening, although I believe Alex when she tells me she’s not imagining things, but the thing is, I don’t really care.”

He paused. Ben kept quiet, frowning slightly.

“I mean, that’s not really the point, is it? The only thing I’m concerned about – the only thing you and Mrs. Rousseau should care about as well, in my opinion – is Alex doing well. Alex doing well in _this_ life, you know, here in the USA, not in the present or in the future or in a parallel universe on some kind of haunted island”, he added earnestly. “And as far as Alex being okay is concerned, you’re probably one of the best things that could’ve happened to her.”

Ben looked away. He didn’t know if he wanted to hug or to punch this kid.

“You know”, Karl was continuing in a darker tone, “Alex was pretty messed up before you showed up and gave her some confidence. All the stress about university, and her mother being close enough to hitting rock bottom once or twice in the past… Then of course, I suppose it can never be easy, when you grow up with one parent missing.”

Hell, it wasn’t.

“What I’m trying to tell you is, you should quit worrying about whatever you did and whoever you were in this alternate reality of yours, and focus on who you are and what you want to do here, now. Otherwise”, Karl smiled, pointing to the title of the book Ben had left half-open on the desk, “you’ll never be able to be anything more than a stranger in a strange land.”

 

\---------------------------

 

“Dad, are you sure you want to do this?”

“Of course I do”, his father exclaimed in mock enthusiasm. “Best thing for a man in his late eighties is spending a week in the countryside in the delightful company of zealous young nurses… Doesn’t look like I’ll get a chance to win the Most Senile Guest contest this year, anyway”, he laughed, waving in the direction of an impossibly frail-looking elderly woman compared to whom, Ben had to admit, he looked almost energetic. “Besides”, his father added with a shrug, “I figured both of us could do with some free time.”

Ben hesitated, then stood up, starting to wheel his father towards the brightly colored ‘Silver Travel’ bus.

“All right then. Take care. Have fun.”

 “Son”, his father said, reaching down to activate the wheelchair brake and turning towards Ben, “is everything all right?”

“Yeah, I’m fine, it’s just… There’s something I wanted to ask you.”

“Spit it out!”

Ben halted with a sigh, crouching again to face his father.

“Do you blame me, Dad?”

“What?”

“Do you think it’s my fault that she died?”

His father met his gaze, something unreadable in his eyes, then looked away.

“I don’t”, he murmured. “Not anymore.”


	4. Whatever happened, happened

“Let go of me!”

Ben tossed and turned uneasily in half-sleep, Keamy’s malevolent leer before his eyes, Alex’s pleading voice in his ears.

“Stop it, get off me… Don’t – Let me – Just please, please…”

Ben opened his eyes and sat up, passing a hand over his face. He should probably consider sleeping pills.

“I said get off me!”

Great, now he was having auditory hallucinations. Frowning, he stood up and walked to the window.

Some kind of brawl was taking place in the street below his second-floor apartment. A couple of thugs were bothering two younger kids. The girl was screaming. She looked like… Was she… She couldn’t be –

Before he could think about it, Ben grabbed a pair of shoes and rushed downstairs.

 

\----------------------------

 

“Let go of her, NOW!”

The guy stopped, tightening his grip around Alex’s arms and waist, raising his eyebrows in Ben’s direction for a moment, then grinned at her.

“Look who’s come to rescue you, sweetie! Super Nerd in the Pajama Suit.”

Ben glanced sideways. Another young man was holding Karl, pressing his head against the ground, twisting his arm. They were all drunk.

He addressed first guy again, blind rage surging through him.

“Get your hands off her now and I won’t kill you”, he muttered through gritted teeth.

The man gaped at him in mock surprise, starting to laugh, and then he was on the ground, his hands over his face, spitting blood. Alex collapsed onto the pavement, shaking.

God, it felt good.

“What the hell –” the other guy mumbled, springing up and backing away.

“Who the hell are you?” the man on the ground moaned, scrambling to his feet.

“He’s my Dad, you f-fuckin’ bastard”, Alex sobbed, and suddenly she was so beautiful, sitting on the pavement in the orange glow of the street lights, loose strands of hair framing her face, eye liner and tears streaming down her cheeks, that Ben felt his heart was going to break.

“Let’s go home”, he said softly, helping her up and putting an arm around her waist, Karl sustaining her from the other side.

 

\--------------------------

 

_“Verizon’s Voice Messaging Service. If you want to leave a message, please redial –“_

Ben hung up again. Danielle was still sleeping, of course. Before heading home, Karl had told him that she thought Alex was going to sleep at a girlfriend’s house, so there was no reason why she should be awake, at half past six on Sunday morning.

Yawning, he walked to the living room and sat beside the sofa, sipping what must have been the third or fourth mug of Earl Grey tea.

Alex was breathing deeply, curled up in the blanket he’d drawn over her, her cheeks still streaked with tears and make-up.

Asleep, at last.

She’d cried uncontrollably for over an hour before Ben had been able to soothe her. Then she’d been sick. Ben had sat beside her in the bathroom, holding her hair, disconnected memories of spending similar sleepless nights with a much younger Alex going through in his mind, unexpectedly comforting.

 

\-----------------------------

 

He woke up with a start. Someone was knocking on the door. How long had he been dozing off?

“Coming…” he muttered, glancing at the clock. It was half past eight.

Danielle.

He stepped aside to let her in without a word. She made for the living room, probably oriented by maternal instinct or something. Ben followed her, still dazed. He was lucky he’d changed into something more presentable than his pajamas.

She leaned forward and planted a kiss on Alex’s forehead, gently removing her hair from her eyes.

“Danielle, I –” he commenced as she straightened up, but she walked towards him and threw her arms around his neck.

“Thank you”, she whispered, her voice a little shaky.

“Of – of course”, he stammered after a while, pulling away from her.

“Will you walk with me?” she asked, already by the door. “If you don’t mind leaving Alex alone in your house for a while, of course. I don’t think she’s going to wake up very soon, anyway”, she added as an afterthought, turning towards him.

“Of course not.”

He scribbled a note for Alex and followed Danielle in the cold air of the early morning.

 

\--------------------------

 

They were silent most of the time, except for the occasional small talk about teenage drinking habits and crime rates in the neighborhood.  At some point, Ben realized that ‘walking with her’ had been implicitly turned into ‘walking her home’, and he began to wonder where on Earth this was going to lead.

“Here you are”, he said with little conviction when they reached her doorstep, breaking a long silence. “I’d better go back home and check on Alex…”

“Please, come in”, Danielle replied calmly, and he obeyed without further objections. _With the smile of contented sleepwalkers_ , he thought to himself.

  “Danielle, maybe we should talk about –” he attempted, shutting the door behind him, but his words were cut short by her lips brushing lightly against his eyelids, tracing thin lines on his temple, grazing his collarbone.

Their kiss was strong and vehement, desperate, effortless. He pressed his body against hers, tightening his grip around her waist, craving contact.

“Shall we go somewhere more intimate?” she suggested, her eyes dark as she drew him towards her bedroom, and God, this was too good, he thought randomly as he unbuttoned her coral silk blouse.

She planted soft kisses on the back of his neck, up and down his spine. He turned to face her, shivering, and then he grabbed her arms and he was into her until she cried out and he shuddered, falling apart, gasping her name. 


	5. There's no place like home

They sit on the wooden bench in the small concrete backyard. She smokes a cigarette, he watches her. She sleeps, he reads a book. They talk. She rests her head on his shoulder, her gaze on the rust-red ivy, his thumb caressing hers.

Alex talks on the phone and does her homework and cries, sometimes she calls him dad. She meets his father.

Ben goes to sleep and covers detention and walks in the park. Sometimes he stops to think, and he knows he’s home.


End file.
